Valentino's eco modernism

Model walks the runway at the Valentino Spring 2010 haute couture show in Paris on Wednesday, January 27, 2010.[Agencies]

Paris – Valentino offered a large dollop of eco modernist fashion in the house's Spring 2010 haute couture collection, presented before huge images of swaying digital trees projected on the walls of the medieval convent hospital in Paris where the show was staged Wednesday, Jan. 27.

"Hidden Eden" was the name the design duo of Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pier Paolo Piccioli gave to the collection, an evocative display of naturalistic fashion and quivering clothes.

In a show and collection that neatly juxtaposed technology and nature, it was telling what were the two defining materials - soft chiffon and hard sharkskin, or to use its technical term, galuchat. These two were combined in one remarkable jacket, a curvy biker jacket with cashmere trim.

This Roman design duo could certainly not be faulted for failing to take risks. They even invented a new garment - a single sleeve jump suit with a hint of a tunic, which they christened the "jump dress." They also whipped up a super multi-pastel feather jacket.

Throughout the show, the look was ethereal with the models wafting between the twisting trees, the yellow, rose and flesh hues of the clothes mirrored by technical versions of the same colors on the screen.

"Elongated insects," was how Piccioli termed the lean look and silhouette he and Chiuri wanted models to have on the catwalk.